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Soap
SOAP was a situation comedy that was an unabashed send-up of daytime dramas. The series was created by Susan Harris (The Golden Girls) and was produced by Paul Junger Witt and Tony Thomas through their production company, Witt-Thomas-Harris Productions. The series aired on the ABC Television Network from 1977-1981. The series was slated to take the previous attempt at sending up soap opera conventions, Norman Lear's Mary Hartman, Mary Hartman, one step further. When it first premiered, it was criticized by many various groups, both secular and religious, (including an LGBT group, worried about one of the characters being played stereotypically) and some stations either played it late at night or refused to air it at all. However, when it later went into repeats, it was shown and discovered and it was revealed to be very well written and well acted. The show took the various soap opera staples and made them funny without being disrespectful. The show's announcer was originally slated to be the late Casey Kasem (American Top 40; as well as the voice of Shaggy Rogers of Scooby Doo fame); but after he objected to the content of the show, he was replaced by a then-unknown Rod Roddy, who would later be the second announcer (after Johnny Olson) of the long-running CBS game show, The Price is Right. At the beginning recap every week, he would always ask, "Confused? You won't be, after you watch this week's episode of......Soap." The show was set in the fictional town of Dunn's River, Connecticut and it focused on the lives of two sisters, wealthy Jessica Tate (Katherine Helmond) and more middle class Mary Campbell (Cathryn Damon). The extremely sweet but sheltered (and slightly daffy) Jessica (who, as the announcer stated, lived in the neighborhood known as "Rich") was married to wealthy Wall Street stockbroker, Chester Tate (Robert Mandan, a veteran of the long-running Search for Tomorrow), a serial philanderer (two of his numerous affairs were with his demanding secretary Claire and another woman named Pigeon); and had three children, the diffident and social climbing Eunice (Jennifer Salt); man-crazy Corrine (Diana Canova), who was later revealed to had been adopted by Jessica and Chester; and Billy (Jimmy Baio, the cousin of Scott Baio), the youngest and the only son. Also living with the Tates was Benson (Robert Guillaume), their insolent black cook/butler, who had nothing but contempt for Chester (about Chester's philandering, "The man jumps on anything that breeds!"), but had a compassionate heart and a very obvious soft spot for Jessica, had a best friendship with Corrine and clearly favored Billy (whom he thought was the only one of the family worth a damn), while he pointedly ignored Eunice although that later changed. Benson, due to his cutting remarks and put-downs towards Chester, became such a popular and breakout character that he was spun off and made the lead role on the later television series, Benson (which unlike the parent show, did not use the serial format, but was more straight situation comedy). After leaving the Tate family's employ, he began working for Jessica and Mary's widowed cousin, Governor Gene Gatling (James Noble) as, at first, the head of household affairs, then later he became state Budget Director and even later on, was Gatling's Lieutenant Governor. Two of Guillaume's fellow Soap alumna, Inga Swenson, who played nasty Ingrid Svenson, Corrine's real mother (she and Jessica and Mary's brother, Randolph Gatling, were Corrine's real parents) who hated the Tates and Campbells and wanted them destroyed; and Caroline McWilliams, who played Sally, a woman who tried to break up the Campbell marriage, being used by the nasty Ingrid, were also cast in the new series, due to their strong performances on Soap. Inga played Gretchen Kraus, the cook at the Governor's Mansion, and Benson's arch-foil. She and Benson would later became close friends and trusted allies. McWilliams would play the Governor's secretary, Marcy Hill until the second season, when she got married. The show also featured, over the 1979-1986 run, Rene Auberjonois and Lewis J. Stadlen as the Governor's aides, Clayton Endicott and John Taylor, respectively; Ethan Phillips as the press secretary, Pete Downey; Didi Conn as secretary Denise Stevens, who worked for Benson when he was Budget director; Billie Bird as the head housekeeper, Mrs. Cassidy; and Missy Gold as Katie Gatling, the governor's daughter. (The show also featured Jerry Seinfeld, early in his career) It was at that time that Benson's last name was finally revealed. His name was Benson DuBois. After Benson left, the Tates had to hire a new servant called Saunders (Roscoe Lee Browne), who was more polished and articulate than Benson was, but was as insolent and rude as his predecessor had ever been. During the series' first season, the naïve Jessica would constantly deny that Chester was cheating on her, until one day while at lunch with Mary, she caught Chester in a romantic clinch with his secretary, Claire who had demanded that he leave Jessica for good and marry her, or else he would go to prison for Stock Market fraud. Shocked at the sight, Jessica breaks down crying in her sister's arms. The next evening, Jessica confronted Chester on his brazen infidelity and then walked out of the house, but she would later came back. Chester, having tired of the foolishness, finally fired Claire, who made a scene in the restaurant (to the point that she would scream and pull the tablecloth off the table and smash the meal), and she called the SEC and exposed Chester's Stock Market fraud! Jessica and Chester would inevitably divorce in the final season. She would never remarry, but Chester would later marry his daughter, Eunice's friend, Annie. On the other side of the spectrum, Jessica's sister, Mary was on her second marriage to building foreman, Burt Campbell (Richard Mulligan). She was raising her two sons from her first marriage to mobster Johnny Dallas, Danny Dallas (Ted Wass) and Jodie Dallas (Billy Crystal). Jodie was one of the first openly gay characters on television in the 1970s. Jodie was first dating a football player, Dennis Phillips (Bob Seagren), but he fathers a baby with attorney Carol David (Rebecca Balding). He eventually fought for and won custody of baby Wendy, despite the vindictive Carol and her equally vindictive mother (Peggy Pope) lying about him. Carol kidnapped the baby, and Jodie enlisted the help of Private Investigator, Maggie Chandler (Barbara Rhodes) to help locate her. They succeeded in finding the child and Jodie proposed to Maggie. After a failed hypnotherapy session in order to see if his relationship with Maggie was real, Jodie thought he was an 90 year old man named Julius Kassendorf. Danny was a mobster, like Johnny Dallas was, and had to contend with the Godfather (Richard Libertini), who wanted him to kill Burt because he was the one who had (supposedly) killed Johnny Dallas. Danny eventually forgave him, as did Mary. He would later marry mobster daughter, Elaine Lefkowitz (Dinah Manoff), who was killed by kidnappers. Danny would later become a policeman, and would later date a woman named Polly (Lynne Moody) and a former prostitute named Gwen (Jessie Wells). He would also later discover that his father was not Johnny Dallas. Her father, Charles Lefkowitz, who had disowned Elaine after she married and showed that he really did not love her, was played by actor Sorrell Booke, who would later become better known as Boss Hogg on the long-running adventure comedy, The Dukes of Hazzard. It was later revealed in the final season that Danny was really the son of Chester Tate (when he had a brief affair with Mary, before he married Jessica). Upon finding out about Chester having an affair with Mary, Jessica would not speak with her sister for a time, but later, they would repair the rift. It was revealed that Jessica had married Chester to satisfy blackmail that her mother had over Chester's father. Had Jessica not married Chester, the elder Mr. Tate would have been jailed for embezzlement! However, Jessica never forgave Chester for this last deceit! Burt also had two sons from his first marriage. He had a son named Peter (Robert Urich), a tennis pro, and Chuck (Jay Johnson) who also had a puppet named Bob who was quite outspoken, to the point of belligerence. Bob's nasty comments have caused nearly everyone in both families to want to do physical damage to the ventriloquist's dummy. Peter was notorious for his womanizing at the Tennis Club he worked at, and had several relationships with various women from Dunn's River, including Jessica and Corrine Tate. Peter would only last the first season, as he was murdered in his shower. Everyone in both families were suspected in the murder, as was gleefully stated by the idiotic Chief of Police of Dunn's River (or as he would say, "Piece of Cholief") Tinkler (Gordon Jump). However, Jessica was arrested, tried, convicted and sentenced for the murder, despite the able help of famed and highly powerful attorney E. Ronald Mallu (Eugene Roche), who fell in love with her, but it was later revealed that Chester had killed him and had set her up to take the fall for his crimes, which infuriated Jessica (not to mention that Eunice, Billy and Corrine came down to the kitchen and cooked food, to Benson's dismay). For Jessica, the charges were dropped and the conviction was overturned. Chester, meanwhile, was sent to prison for this. His cellmate, Dutch Leitner (Donnelly Rhoades, a veteran of the Young and The Restless) would eventually manipulate Chester to escape prison, and then he would begin to date, and eventually marry Chester's daughter, Eunice. He would later have a fling with Corrine, but he would later return to Eunice. Corrine, on the other hand, would forget Peter and she married former priest Tim Flotsky (Sal Viscuso). This angered his mother, Flo Flotsky (Doris Roberts) so much, that she died after cursing them both. They eventually had a child who was demon possessed, perhaps due to Flo's curse. After her doomed affair with Dutch, Corrine moved with her son to California. Living with Jessica was her and Mary's widowed father, the Major (played by Guiding Light alumna, Arthur Peterson), a senile old man who thought he was still fighting World War II! Much of the series' stories dealt with the usual soap staples. Infidelity, romance, unwanted pregnancies, kidnapping, murder, and also talked about homosexuality and gender reassignment surgery. The topics were very daring for the time (which explained a lot of the animus towards the show) but the series would become so popular, that it lasted for four seasons, and then had a healthy run in Syndication. The series finale showed cliffhangers all over the place. Chester caught Danny and Annie in bed, he was ready to kill them both; Burt was to be ambushed by his political enemies; and Jessica faced a firing squad in South America. The closest thing to any of the scenarios being resolved was in the series, Benson, when Benson was visited by Jessica's ghost, implying that she had indeed died. In later years, the series had achieved classic cult status for its well-written stories and the excellent cast. The topics that were so daring back in the 1970's would be considered commonplace today. Because the audience knew about the characters' complicated histories and also because of the show's use of the serial format, the situations and dialogue were made sharper and became even funnier. Many of the cast went on to major success after Soap ended. Billy Crystal (Jodie) became a major film star with his roles mainly comedic, and he became one of the three stars (Robin Williams and Whoopi Goldberg were the others) who started HBO's Comic Relief; Robert Mandan (Chester) went on to play the pompous and ineffective Colonel Fielding on the TV adaptation of the movie, Private Benjamin, co-starring with the late Eileen Brennan and Lorna Patterson; Katherine Helmond (Jessica) went on to play Mona Robinson, the sexy and single mother of Judith Light's character, Angela Bower, on the highly successful comedy, Who's The Boss? along with Tony Danza; Ted Wass (Danny) would later play the on-screen father of Mayim Bialik and Joey Lawrence on the series, Blossom; Cathryn Damon (Mary) and Eugene Roche (E. Ronald Mallu) went on and joined the cast of the Emmanuel Lewis sitcom, Webster, playing Bill and Cassie Parker, who rented their Victorian house to Webster and his parents, played by Alex Karras and Susan Clark Karras; Richard Mulligan (Burt) went on to play Dr. Harry Weston on the long-running comedy, Empty Nest, which was also created by his former Soap boss, Susan Harris; Dinah Manoff (Elaine Lefkowitz Dallas) would also join the cast playing Harry's neurotic daughter, Carol Weston; Diana Canova (Corrine) later headlined two sitcoms of her own, I'm a Big Girl Now, which co-starred Danny Thomas as her father; and Throb which co-starred Jonathan Prince as her boss at a recording company; a young Paul Walker who played her son, and Jane Leeves (later of Frasier and Hot in Cleveland fame), who played Prudence Anne "Blue" Bartlett, her co-worker and later roommate; Robert Guillaume (Benson), as noted, headlined the cast of the spin-off comedic series, Benson; Jennifer Salt (Eunice) later became an author and left show business and Jimmy Baio (Billy) retired from acting. Category:Prime time soaps